Busy to Boring

    The last half of this week was stressing and busy, well for me anyway, others probably wouldn't have considered it busy but with the way that my life goes it was busy for me. I have been scrambling to try my best to get some documents together for my annual review(for my geared-to-income apartment), which included many phone calls, and I do mean many these kept me occupied from Wednesday to Friday morning. Why is it that when you need to track down a few specific people you get anyone but them? So I had to make a lot of phone calls. The results are that I now have all but two of the documents, one of which will be ready to be picked up Monday morning...oh wait, it is now Monday...so just a few more hours until I can pick up that document and the last one I need is being sent in the mail. I have to have all submitted by the 21st of this month which is rapidly approaching.
     I'm planning to bring in what I have today after I pick up one of the documents in town and then I will hope that the other arrives before the 21st so that I can get that one in too.

    Friday was well, interesting, is one word for it I guess. Joram, my furry sweetheart woke me up at 4:30am as he has been doing a lot lately, he really wanted to go outside. I was lucky enough to wake up with a really bad migraine. I was dizzy and nauseous and knew I would be spending some quality time in the bathroom, which I did all morning! That finally abated around 11:30am, shortly after I got a call from a friend to invite me to go shopping with her. She knows that I don't have a car and rely on public transportation which makes it hard to get much shopping done. With how bad my Fibromyalgia is I can't carry very many bags at a time so when I take the bus into town for shopping I'm limited in what I can get.
   Long story short, my generous and kind friend that does have a car took me shopping with her. I was able to get a few things for Joram and me that I really needed including: for Joram - a new toy that he is crazy about, a clipper kit(i can now put the scissors away and trimming is so much easier), treats; for me: 2 new bras that fit good and that I am happy with, a few snacks, and a very satisfying trip to the book store.

   I usually only get one or two new books per month as I am on a very limited income, but I had some extra money this month as back pay that I was waiting for came in. That meant that I could take advantage of a promotion at the book store to get bonus points on my rewards card. I think my friend and the staff of the book store thought I had gone crazy as I was excited and quite enjoying myself in picking out my books. At the end of my good time in the book store I came away with 4 new books and two new bookmarks. My book collection is growing!!! Growing slowly but it is growing.

   Yesterday I took the opportunity to use the new clipper kit for the first time which also happened to be my first time of using a clipper ever. It was so much easier than trying to trim Joram with scissors. It was so fast. I didn't get perfect results, but I'm satisfied with my first clipper trim. Joram was really good he stood still the whole time (which never would have happened with the scissors) until I got to his front paws. He really didn't want me to trim his front paws. So I decided to leave them for now as he had been so good and plan on definitely getting his front paws trimmed later today.

This is what he looked like after his trim. I had a hard time keeping him still for the picture, had many blurry pictures. By the time I finally got this picture I was struggling with him and my phone. Didn't realize the picture was taken sideways until after. By that point I was so frustrated I decided to keep this picture and figured I could rotate it when I posted it...yet I can't figure out how to do that! Can anyone help me out on how to rotate the picture!???!

That brings us to Sunday. I wasn't feeling good at all so I decided to stay home and take it easy for the day. Turns out that I should have gone out or made some kind of plans as I ended up being so bored. But I did get through Sunday and now it's past 12am so it is now Monday although I haven't gone to sleep yet I will be headed there in a while. Hope to have good dreams!

BB

d&j





Not Sure I Understand

Over the past year i was told by 3 different men that i had to lose weight or they would not be interested in me. I've consulted various friends about this because I think I'm a good person and i don't understand why men don't want to accept me for who and what i am. well, one friend told me that i was better off without those men and another friend told me that men are more attracted by looks than women are...and the others had harsh words to say about what these men said to me. i still don't know what to think and no i am not losing weight for them, I'm doing it for myself. ever since i was diagnosed with fibromyalgia i have gained weight maybe about 10 lbs per year and i do miss the way my body used to be. I realize that I'm a bit older now so i may not be able to get back down to the weight that I was previously at but i want to try to get as close to it as i can.

In my last post i believe i mentioned that i had decided to start trying to lose weight. Well, all of last week i did manage to do some yoga, although there was one day that i skipped because i was exhausted, due to my chronic fatigue syndrome. Well, the package that the yoga DVD came in said that i should be doing the yoga morning and evening...well I've managed the morning, but not the evening yet.

My first day was kind of an ordeal for me. I was sweating buckets and my body didn't want to be doing this and was giving me all kinds of sharp short pains in various spots, and these spots were not connected to what i was trying to do.
Kind of hard to explain for those of you who don't have Fibromyalgia those sharp overwhelming pains are a fact of life for me and others who have Fibromyalgia. I was determined that i was not going to let the fibro deter from doing what i felt i needed to do in order to lose weight.

Day two was something else altogether. No buckets of sweat! No sharp unpredictable pains! So after the segment that i usually do was done i said 'that couldn't have been the same one as yesterday'. i looked at the clock and it had been 45 minutes, so yes it was the same thing I'd done the day before. I was quite surprised because it had all gone so much easier than the previous day, when the segment ended i felt like i was just getting started.

Over the course of the rest of the week i noticed that i had a bit more energy throughout the day which for me is a huge change because with the chronic fatigue syndrome I'm exhausted all the time. It was not a huge change in my energy level it was just a very tiny difference, but it was one that i noticed and it gave me a moment of happiness.

i haven't gotten access to a scale yet and i haven't seen or noticed any other changes in my body so I'm starting to wonder if it will be possible to lose weight with doing the yoga. When i came up with the idea i was sure the yoga would help me to lose weight, but I'm now having doubts on that. i know it's only been a week so i will just stick to it and try to do as much as i can. I'm hoping in the coming week to be able to start making time for at least a few evening sessions of yoga.
Wish me luck!!

Challenge accepted

For the past few years I have wanted to lose weight. Yes, I'd say to people I'm trying to lose weight, yet I didn't slow down on my love of  'junk food' and although i did make some attempts to get more exercise, i now feel that it is time to do more. But do what?

I have Fibromyalgia as well as many other medical conditions. I'm limited physically in how much i can do each day. So, while i am making a commitment to get as much exercise as possible and my mind is firmly set on limiting my intake of the snacks that i love, I'm not sure how this will turn out yet.

 I am hoping to be successful, and live up to the challenge that i received yesterday to lose at least 20-40lbs!!

Beyond what I've mentioned I'm not sure what i can do to effectively help me to shed the lbs that i really do need to shed. If anyone has any good and serious suggestions please share!!

I don't have a scale here at home so I'm not sure how I'm going to be able to monitor my progress. I'm guessing i will need to find someone who does have a scale that they will let me use once a week. I will let you know how it is going whenever possible.
d
xoxo

Monday-unexpected

Monday, well it looked like a nice day outside and my cat was out of food so i decided to take a walk to the store and get her some food. Good or bad decision? Well, it was good because my cat needed food, but i had no idea not even a hint of what was about to happen.

There's a shortcut that i've been using since the beginning of this year, a non-paved alley, and by that i mean it's one of the few dirt roads that we have around here, although this alley is half dirt and half rocks.

Usually i wear my black sandals because they allow me to have more secure footing, (my pain consultant has been telling me for two years at least that i have weak ankles and need footwear that gives support to my ankles...i thought yeah that's nice in theory but in summer i love to wear my sandals, which don't have any ankle support) I had already left the building before i realized i had my brown sandals instead of the black ones i usually wear. Well, my mind was distracted by quite a few things that i've been thinking over recently which accounts for why i had not been paying attention to which sandals were on my feet.

So here i am in the middle of the shortcut which i must say is very uneven ground to be walking on even in the best of circumstances, but i'd walked it so many times i was feeling confident. Halfway through said shortcut my right ankle decided to give out on me and i fell. I landed on my hands and knees and my right knee landed a lot harder than my left one. My first thought was, have i broken anything? I wasn't feeling any pain so i got up and realized that part of my right knee and most of the leg was scraped up pretty good. I was bleeding but very slowly so i quickly made the decision to continue on to the store, after all my cat still needed food. I also want to say here that i always go to that store because all the ladies are so nice to me there and i feel so much at home, as apposed to the other stores around here that make me feel like i'm an unwelcome intruder.

By the time i got to the store my leg was feeling a bit stiff and i was starting to feel some pain but it was nothing compared to the pain i go through everyday(for those of you who don't know i have Fibromyalgia as well as CFS and many other medical conditions) i cleaned out my 'injury' the best that i could with clean cloths given to me by the lady that was working that afternoon. I then did my purchases and continued on my way home. By the time i reached home i was in so much more pain, having a hard time bending my knee and my hip had started to hurt as well. I was grateful to be home and to be able to get a better look at my 'injury' and to clean it out properly and sit with my leg up and the area in question covered by a cold cloth. In this way i got the bleeding to stop.

The pain, especially the pain in my hip continued to increase. My 'fall' had happened early afternoon and as the afternoon wore on the pain increased so much i was in tears(now those that know me best know i have a very high tolerance for pain and do everything i possibly can to hide the fact that i am feeling pain, so they know that when i am showing by my body language that i am feeling pain then it is very, very, very bad) By about 6:30 i was in so much pain i was feeling desperate, so i reached out for my favorite means of comfort-prayer. i knew i could not go see a doctor so i asked what can i do? the answer came quickly and i made a phone call and within half a hour the missionaries along with a brother from the church that they happened to have with them at the time were here to give me a blessing. I don't know how to express sufficiently how grateful i am that they were able to do this and arrived so quickly.

Now, more than 24hrs after my fall i am still in some pain, i'm barely having any trouble walking which when this happened walking was almost an insurmountable feat! The pain in consequence of this incident is almost gone, i am still having some pain with my hip but not much. I am so thankful, grateful and feel so blessed right now, i truly feel that 'my cup runneth over'!!!

I suspect that my hip may be bothering me for the next few days, but i am so much recovered compared to yesterday that i feel i will be smiling much today!!

My botched Wednesday

    I had made plans to spend the afternoon with my Mom. When morning came, it started raining here. I know my Mom doesn't like to go out when it's raining if she doesn't have to and i try to avoid going out when it's raining, because if my back gets too cold i get a flare up(from fibromyalgia).
   So i called my Mom this morning and we decided to cancel our plans for today. We're still going to get together on a nice weather day, we'll just have to wait for that day to arrive.
   I was sitting here reading. Right now i'm reading 'The Crimson Chalice' by Victor Canning. I had put my book down for a minute and then forgot what i was going to do, so i was looking around me trying to remember...and the phrase 'the new key to an ancient enigma' got stuck in my mind. I was trying to figure out where it came from. I knew that i must have picked it up from somewhere. You see i've been an incurable obsessive bookworm ever since i was given a book for my 10th birthday (that book, my first book, was 'Anne of Green Gables', and yes i do still have that book). So, i've picked up the habit that when i don't have a book or magazine in my hands, and i'm not doing anything i look around me and read anything that i possibly can. I've read descriptions on boxes, street signs millions of times, advertisements on the street, i read anything that has any writing, if it's something like a licence plate that just has random letters than i make up silly sentences to go with them. Many times i will do these things while i'm thinking of something else and i'm barely aware that i've read something, or made up a silly sentence.
   So, to shorten this story a bit, i started looking around me and try to figure out where i'd read that sentence. It took a while, but eventually i found it. To explain a bit, my bookcase is right next to my computer desk, so i finally realized the sentence 'new key to an ancient enigma' is the sentence on the front of a book that is on the right side of my book case on a shelf that is the same height as the top of my desk. So, mystery solved! The name of 'that' book is 'Solving Stonehenge'. And it was a very good book! I remember that after i'd finished reading it i went back and re-read a few of the most interesting chapters.
   I highly recommend both of these books, they are fascinating, captivating and they both held my interest throughout. You see i've read so many books that it is not often anymore that a book will keep me interested from page one all the way through to the end. Even if a book doesn't keep my interest i still read it through to the end. Once i've started reading a book i just have to finish it. I guess i'm just a hopeless bookworm.  On a scale of 1-10 how much of a bookworm do you think i am? I'm anxious to find out what your response will be!!!